12 Hours Working Shift

Hi Sir/Ma'am,

I just want to ask your opinion/legal advice about this, I am a Network Engineer employed to a Internet Service Provider company i am working for 1 year and 9 months, I started August of 2017 until present. When I started to work here my schedule is 8 hours (Monday-Friday) with 2 consecutive Rest days (Saturday and Sunday) with Shifting Time Schedule.

Just this January 2018, alot of my colleagues had resigned, causing our department to be undermanned. So our Manager decided to "temporarily" change our schedule to 12 hours duty with 3-4 day offs so we can support a 24/7 operations. There were no waiver or anything provided by our HR dept regarding this change of schedule. And we were told by our Manager that the excess hours will be paid as OT.

But all of a sudden, it has been 5 months already that we are now adopting the 12 hours duty, we are not paid with OT pay. Rather the HR says that the excessive time were OFFSET.

Is it legal? or I should demand for OT pay?

Please enlighten me on this.

Thank you.

Two scenario for your case.

S#1. do you know what level are you with your company org structure? by law only rank and file employees are covered by overtime pay. so when you were paid OT before, they paid you by mistake and have been corrected,

or

S#2 If what your HR stating about OFFSET is a compressed work week schedule, this should have been registered to DOLE. if they did not register it, then there is no offset hours and you should be paid for overtime.

Hello Sir/Ma'am,
Thank you for your response.
To answer your question, I am a regular employee and I have been entitled for an overtime pay since the day I was hired.

compressed work week is allowed, provided they submitted proper documentation to DOLE.

Overtime cannot be offset with shortage in regular time. because they have different rates of payment.

compile your evidence that you rendered overtime and write a courteous letter or email to HR. Wait for a written response. If they refuse, you can file a money claim at nLRC

check with HR if your company is under compressed work week schedule, you might not be eligible for overtime unless you exceed the approved company schedule.